January 2010 – HappyStinkingJoy

Stinking Old Germans!

There are so many things about the Craphandle of Nebraska not to like! The wind blows here almost all of the time. The scenery is… uh… not very scenic. There is little to do here that does not involve killing critters of one kind or another or drinking lots and lots of alcohol (I know, I know; sounds like a redneck heaven… but if you aren’t 100% pure redneck, it sucks.) Low wages and a relatively high cost of living (i.e. we make less and pay more because we like killing stuff and drinking stuff… or something.) Oh, I could go on for hours about the stuff here that sucks! There is some good stuff here too, but the good stuff isn’t nearly as fun to write about!

One of the most annoying things of all about living in the Craphandle of Nebraska is the stinking old Germans!

Now, I have nothing against Germans as a people (other then, I guess, World War I… & maybe World War II… and that holocaust thing wasn’t real cool… and BWMs kind of suck ’cause they are only for rich, snotty people.) Heck, I have my fair share of German blood running through my veins. However, the Germans here are different! The Germans here in the Craphandle of Nebraska are Germans from Russia who left Russia to get away from the Czars… blah, blah, blah. I’ve had the whole thing explained to me before but it didn’t interest me at the time and I have no desire to bore you to death with it now. To make it short: Germans around here are… uh… different; did I already mention that?

To Germans around here, bratwurst isn’t a mainstay and sauerkraut is seldom seen. “Garlic sausage” is the meat of choice. Never heard of garlic sausage? Yeah, neither has 99% of the US population. Garlic sausage is a beefie porkish big link sausage thingie that tastes pretty garlicy. Don’t get me wrong, the garlic sausage stuff is good… but it ain’t bratwurst! Also, they have these things here called “cabbage burgers.” These are also known in German communities around the world as kraut burgers or runzas.

Kraut burgers are a mixture of lightly seasoned cabbage and ground beef stuffed inside bread dough and baked. Sounds yummy, huh? Actually, they aren’t nearly as gross as they sound and, if you’re like me, you will enjoy the gas-producing side effects:) There is even a franchised fast food restaurant based out of somewhere in eastern Nebraska that specializes in kraut burgers; it’s called Runza and it sells extremely overpriced, very small versions of the kraut burger. So, next time you’re in Nebraska, stop at a Runza and order some cabbage and ground beef stuffed bread dough… it will only take like 3 of them to fill you up, and they are only like $5.00 each. That’s a reasonable lunch!

Germans around here also like their “German Blackberries”, which aren’t blackberries at all but are the potentially lethal Black Nightshade.

The local Germans use these berries, which are from the same plant family as tobacco, in breads and various desert products. Poisonous tobacco berries… line up kiddies, Grandma has something special for you!

Aside from the strange cooking habits of the stinking Germans, the attitude that many of these people force on you will either really tick you off or make you sick! “My family helped found this valley,” the stinking Germans will say (’cause, I guess, much of the Craphandle is located in a valley.) They throw this at you in an attempt to, I don’t know, impress you? It’s like the fact that this moron’s great-grandfather settled here a long time ago makes the moron someone special. I always want to come back with something like:

“Well, if your family helped found this valley, why in the hell aren’t there better paying jobs here? Why is the crime rate so proportionately high here? Why has this turned into a retirement community where young families have to be semi-retarded to stay? Why is it, that at any given time of the day, you can be stopped by not one but two trains when trying to travel from one side of the “twin cities” of Scottsbluff and Gering to the other… what kind of “progressive” community still has railroad crossings on major streets instead of underpasses or overpasses… oh, that’s right, we’re not ‘progressive,’ ’cause we’re a bunch of stinking Germans who don’t need no stinking progress! Why is there a meth lab in every corn field and a meth head on every corner? If your family helped found this valley and played a major part in what this valley is today… I guess your family kind of failed us, didn’t they, Sparky!”

Of course, the stinking old Germans only throw this crap out when you are dealing with a customer service issue and they want special treatment because of “who they are.” If I was actually able to come back with the response I feel is appropriate, I would find myself filing for unemployment. Stinking Germans!

Another time where the stinking old Germans really try to tick me off is when they are driving! Even in my church parking lot, you really have to be careful with the stinking Germans behind the wheel. It can be 15 degrees Fahrenheit with the wind howling and the snow blowing and you are coming out of church with your family, including your new-born baby. You are trying to rush your family to the safety of the awaiting car but… LOOK OUT!!!… a stinking old German is coming right at you and there isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that that old moron is going to slow down let alone stop to let you and your family find safety from the weather in your car… not until they drive by. How DARE you think that the stinking old German should let you cross just because he or she is in the warm safety of their car; they are old and they are German… you should feel lucky that they didn’t just run you down where you stand, because that is perfectly within their rights. Don’t you know who they ARE! And if you think the church parking lot is bad, just wait until you try the stinking Walmart parking lot!!!

Brett Favre Sucks!

I have been a Minnesota Vikings fan since I was 10 years-old. I saw Tommy Kramer make a game-winning Hail-Mary pass to Ahmad Rashad against the Cleveland Browns, and from that point forward I have learned to live with the major disappointment and depression that goes hand-in-hand with being a Viking fan. In fact, I partially blame the lack of professional success that I have found in my life on the misery the Vikings have caused me.

How can a person find success when they are associated with a bunch of losers like the Vikings. I mean, even with outstanding players like Fran Tarkington, Ahmad Rashad, Randall Cunnignham, Chris Carter, Robert Smith, Randy Moss and even Dante Culpepper, the Vikings have never been able to find a way to win it all. In fact, the Vikings hold the prestigious record of most-trips-to-a-Super-Bowl-without-a-win… something we can all be proud of.

So, much like my Vikings, I have found little satisfaction with my professional life. Like the Vikings, I have never gone all the way to complete success and seem to settle for mediocrity. It sucks, but it’s the way of the Viking.

And then, at the end of last year, 40 hit me like a tons of really old, crusty, worthless bricks and I settled into a funk. Mid-life was upon me, and suddenly I realized that the Vikings were having a pretty good year. And at the helm… Brett-Stinking-Favre: past nemesis, one of the all-time greats at the position of quarterback, and a dude who is (like me) dealing with just having entered the mid-life crisis of the 40s.
Suddenly, there was a light radiating from the end of the tunnel which had existed in nothing more than shadows these last 40 years. Suddenly, there was hope where hope had never existed. Suddenly, being 40 wasn’t so bad because if Brett Favre could lead my Vikings to a Super Bowl victory at 40, who was to say I can’t find some sort of success in my my own small way. 40 be damned… Brett Favre and I were going to show the world that turning 40 wasn’t an end of anything; Brett and I were about to show the world that turning 40 was actually the beginning of the best years of our lives!

And then tonight, Brett Favre and the lame, turnover-happy Minnesota Vikings destroyed this fantasy. Brett showed his age, and it wasn’t pretty. Brett let me down, but, more importantly, he showed me that turning 40 isn’t the beginning of anything good. The NFL is not kind. Being 40 isn’t easy. Being 40 in the unkind NFL is for nincompoops!

Brett, you nincompoop, you let me (and all of the Viking-faithful) down. It wasn’t for a lack of effort. It wasn’t for a lack of ability. It’s just, when you hit 40, the effort and ability rarely connect… and disappointment is never too far down the horizon…

Crap… man, the odds of Brett Favre reading my stinking little blog are about 1 in 10,000,000… but I want to get a message out to him! If any of you are in close personal contact with the 40-year-old grunt, let him know that he needs to give it one more shot! The Vikings need to win a Super Bowl some time before I die… and that stinking 40-year-old Favre is still the best bet of that happening…

Restore my faith, Old Man! Restore my faith…

Origin of Species… or at least of Testicals!

The garden was especially peaceful on this day. The air was warm and calm as the sun shed it’s midday light amongst the dense, prismatic vegetation. Adam, leaning against a large rock in the shade of a dragon’s blood tree, watched a distant tyrannosaurus rex just outside the garden feed on a wooly mammoth.

‘Glad those things aren’t allowed in the garden,’ thought Adam.

A rustle of brush behind Adam announced the arrival of Eve with the midday meal. Adam loved Eve, and he loved the fruit she harvested for the midday meal each day.

“What’d you bring today, Hon?” Adam asked. “Mango… I hope you brought some mango today.”

“Something even better,” replied Eve, blushing. “I brought something new.”

Adam had never seen Eve blush before. “Why are your cheeks turning red?”

“Uh, ’cause you’re naked,” Eve said. She handed the golden fruit in her hand to Adam and immediately went to the nearest fig tree. Grabbing a couple of fig leaves, she covered her “womanly” parts.

“What are you doing?” Adam asked.

“Try the fruit and you’ll see.”

“Why are you covering the parts of yourself that make you different from me?” Adam asked.

“Try the fruit and you’ll see.”

Adam looked at the golden fruit in his hand. Other than the single bite taken from it, the fruit was unblemished.

“Where did you get this?” Adam asked.

Eve pointed to the south and, realizing that her woman-parts were exposed, quickly put the fig leaf back in its protective position.

“Over there,” Eve said, nodding to the south with her head.

“I’ve been south and I have never seen a fruit like this.”

“Oh, it’s there alright,” Eve said. “The serpent showed it to me.”

“The serpent?” asked Adam. “The freaky long thing with no arms or legs that slithers along the ground with the fangs and stuff?”

“That’s the one.”

“Oh, okay, cool,” said Adam as he started to take a bite. As the fruit approached his lips, his brow began to furrow. The fruit froze inches from his mouth. “Hey, this isn’t from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, is it?”

“Well of course not,” said Eve. “We were expressly forbidden from eating that fruit.”

Adam furrowed his brow further and, hand on hip, glared at Eve.

“Okay, maybe it’s from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.”

“Maybe?” asked Adam. “What, you have a death wish or something? We were expressly forbidden from eating this fruit or we will die.”

“Or touching it,” said Eve.

“What’s that?” Adam asked, his eyes growing wide.

“Or touching it,” repeated Eve. “We were forbidden from eating it or even touching it.”

Adam looked from Eve to the fruit in his hand. “Crap.”

“You might as well try it,” Eve said. “You already touched it, so if God is gonna kill me he’s gonna kill you too. You might as well get a taste of it.”

“You lied to me,” Adam said. “You… you…” and because Adam had yet to actually take a bite of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, he could think of none of the really good words to scorn her with, “you… stinker!”

Adam looked at the fruit in his hand and, although he had lost his appetite, he took a bite. As the sweet flesh of the fruit burst to juice in his mouth, Adam realized that he was naked. He ran to the fig tree and grabbed a leaf.

“A-HEM!” came from the sky… and the ground… and everywhere.

“Crap,” whispered Adam, “it’s God!” Adam grabbed Eve by the wrist and forced her down in the bushes as he climbed in beside her.

“Why are you hiding?” asked God.

“I heard you coming and didn’t want you to see me naked,” said Adam.

“Who told you you were naked,” asked God. “Have you eaten from the tree I warned you about?”

“This is all your fault,” Adam whispered to Eve, elbowing her in the side. “Yes, but it was the woman you gave me who who brought me some, and I ate it.”

“How could you do such a thing?” Eve felt the voice of God against her flesh as goosebumps rose on her body against the vibrations of His words.

“The serpent tricked me,” she replied.

God rolled His eyes. Then God started doling out punishment for the serpent.

Meanwhile, Adam stared at Eve. Adam was sure that God would take his side on this matter. After all, Adam had been tricked by that stupid Eve to touch the fruit. Eve, succumbing to the long, seductive form of the serpent, had sold them both up the river. ‘Plus, she lied to me,’ thought Adam. Of course, he still took a bite of the forbidden fruit… all on his own with no physical coercion. Like most of the men to follow him, however, Adam decided at this point in time that he was going to do everything within his power to blame every ill in his life on the sex bore of his rib… and all men to follow fell to Adam’s fate.

Adam started to listen to the punishment appropriated for the serpent, and he realized that Eve and all of womankind was being punished just as much as the serpent. God then directed punishment to Eve and all of womankind.

“You shall bear children in intense pain and suffering; yet even so, you shall welcome your husband’s affections, and he shall be your master.”

Adam snickered. Eve was getting her due. Adam felt pardoned; he felt that God had forgiven the sins that Eve had led him to. Adam felt that silly little women was getting her just desserts, and Eve and all of her ilk would, throughout eternity, pay for the dishonest lies of the first woman taken from the rib of the man! Adam smiled.

…and then Adam felt The Shift. The Shift was the formation of two oval-shaped appendages springing suddenly from the groinish-area of Adam’s loin.

“What the…” Adam exclaimed as his hand fell to the new addition of his outward appearance.

“These, dear Adam, in addition to the life of sin and the need for repentance that lie ahead in your and your descendant’s miserable little lives, are a reminder of the affront to My name that you have allowed here today,” said God.

“But Eve…” said Adam.

“Yes, Eve has done much wrong,” said God. “But Eve is also in a vulnerable position when compared to you, my dear Adam. She is not as physically strong as you, and she is more emotionally unstable than you. So, in order to offset the differences between you and her, I am allowing the ‘dropping of the balls’.”

“The dropping of the what?” asked Adam.

“The balls… those things swinging about your fig-leaf-covered groin,” said God.

Adam touched the balls and asked, “Where did they come from?”

“They were attached to the appendix and were a significant force in the ability of humankind to remain immortal,” said God. “They will still play a significant role in the future of humankind, but having organs that were meant to be protected deep inside of the male body suddenly exposed for all of the natural world to rape… oh, woe it is to be ‘man’.”

“Eve and all of womankind are relegated to a position of inferiority and complacency when compared to man. Of course, the feminists will come along and try to disparage these facts,” said God. “The balls will act as an equalizing force in the battle between the sexes. The feminists will see the balls as a sign of repression and weakness and will strike against them. The insecure woman will see the balls as a sign of power through which they will struggle to find their own identity. The average woman will see the balls as a comical extrusion from the male body and America’s Funniest Home Videos will be born!”

“America’s Funniest Home Videos,” whimpered Adam.

“Oh, my son,” laughed God. “The balls will be both your best friend and your worst enemy. And you will provide to all of humankind more laughs through your balls than you could ever, throughout a thousand lifetimes, imagine.”

Adam looked at the protrusion from his groin and whimpered. Surely this all had to be some sort of horrific joke. Suddenly, Eve grabed Adam’s balls with her clenched fist. She tugged once, softly, and said, “You ready to go start our new life of sin together?”

“Screw you!” exclaimed Adam. He was going to have no part of this new life of sin and regret.

Eve squeezed and pulled at the new appendage between her fingers. Nausea fell upon Adam’s being; from the tip of his toes to the top of his head, he felt pain as Eve pulled at his balls and led him in the direction she desired.

And so it has been ever since…

Yeah, probably not entirely Biblically correct, but his is how I see it going down. Much more believable than evolution, isn’t it? 🙂

Evolution… seriously?!?

There is a lot of information available in this world of ours that disputes or contradicts the theory of evolution. One that comes to mind is the complexity of the human mind and all of the emotions associated with humanity. The human mind, however, is a deep subject and not one many people are willing to research or put a lot of thought into. Apparently our minds aren’t evolved enough to comprehend the mind… or something like that. But why make evolution so complicated? There is a part of the human body (or at least about half of the human bodies) that is much easier to understand than the brain and proves, in my opinion, beyond a reasonable doubt that evolution is nothing more than, to be honest, a bunch of poppycock. If you want to take on a liberal thinker and dispute their irrational theories on evolution, there is only one word that needs to come out of your mouth : testicals.

Testicles, testes, gonads, nads, cojones, juevos, balls, nuts, marbles, twins, “the boys”; whatever you call them, there is no single ( er, double?) organ of the body that goes further to disprove the theory of evolution than the testicles. If you dispute this, you have never been kicked in the balls. Anyone who has had his testicles touched in any way, shape, or form that is not with the greatest of tenderness knows that the testicles are an organ that really should be located somewhere inside the body… and not just on a cold day.

According to the theory of evolution, we have opposable thumbs thanks to many small changes in in our DNA over many thousands of years due to influence and pressures from our surroundings. There was this little fish/reptile thingie that crawled out of the primordial stew that was one of our earliest ancestors. This little fishy cousin of ours (from here-on referred to as Larry… and Larry refers to all ancestors of man) was the first to make the break from living in the water to living to land.

Larry had to adjust and evolve to his new surroundings. As inadequacies were found in Larry’s physical make-up, his internal workings registered the need for improvements and, over time, his DNA changed. So, Larry developed opposable thumbs. Larry also grew hair on his body to protect him from cold weather. Larry learned to walk upright on two feet. As Larry learned to use clothes, the hair became less important and, on most of Larry’s descendants, hair is only in a few varying places around the body. The amount and location of these hairy spots change over the course of a human’s lifetime, which also shows that evolution is a bunch of phewy… we lose an inordinate amount of heat through our head, and as we age we need to conserve more body heat, so old guys lose hair on their head and in turn lose more body heat which results in premature death through balding… yet the inside of men’s noses and ears stay nice and toasty due to the new hair that sprouts in these areas as we age!?!

Thanks for nothing, Larry!

Anywho… you can’t tell me with a straight face that one of the first things Larry did as he climbed naked out of the water and made his “one small step for mankind” wasn’t introducing “the boys” to some inconvenient obtrusion that he tried to walk over. Can’t you just see it? Little Larry crawling out of the water and looking at the beauty of the land before him; the fine sand of the beach between his toes, the warm sun beating down on his back, the small rock in front of him that he just knowshe can walk over… WHAM! right in the cojones… and Larry doubles over in pain!

And we have opposable thumbs?

When Larry racked himself for the first time, he wasn’t thinking about opposable thumbs. He wasn’t thinking about the need to pick things up. He was thinking about how not to vomit from the intense pain that was created by the rough treatment his marbles had just endured! Larry’s internal workings should have immediately started on a resolution to this problem. His internal workings should have said the following, “I need one of two things to happen: either suck the nads up somewhere in the body where they are safe from harm, or grow me some kind of permanent codpiece!”

I spoke with a co-worker of mine about my idea to share my opinions on testicles, and this coworker told me that my observations were irrelevant. “Sperm has to be maintained at a certain temperature in order to survive,” he told me.

Ok, so here I am thinking about how incomprehensible it is that a kangaroo can grow a pouch to support its offspring in one of the most secure environments known to man, and yet, through the evolutionary process, man has not found a way to make his sperm a little more tempature-tolerant… or found a way to add a little “air conditioning”… for “the boys.”

Yet here we are, thousands of years later, with one (or two) of the most sensitive of all internal organs dangling freely between the legs of most men.

DANGLING FREELY!

I realize that America’s Funniest Home Videos would probably not be in existence if it weren’t for the obligatory nut-shot… but I could do without America’s Funniest Home Videos!

So, if evolution did not lead to the formation of the twin brothers swinging between the legs of most men… what did? Well, it’s obvious! It was a God with a wicked sense of humor… which will be the subject of the next post 🙂

Happy New Year!

What did you do for New Year’s Eve? Did you party? Did you make some resolutions that you will never keep? Did you check out the blue moon? Did you even stay up until midnight to watch the new year come rolling in? I’m going to share with you how I spent part of my New Year’s Eve.

I had to work for part of the day. Our office closed early (1pm) and it was a pretty uneventful morning. We did a little potluck at work amongst those of us who actually worked and I made Cincinnati chili. Never heard of Cincinnati chili? Neither had I until I came across the recipe in the local newspaper. Sounded interesting. Tried it, liked it, will probably have it again. Anyway, the potluck was a success.

After work, me and the family went shopping. We were getting some munchies for our little New Year’s celebration and some seafood for the Cajun boil we were having New Year’s day. Well, we decided to avoid Walmart because, well, Walmart sucks. On a normal day, Walmart sucks. On New Year’s Eve day I imagine Walmart super-sucks, so we went to Family Thrift (which is a Nash Finch grocery store… and Nash Finch sucks too, but they usually have decent seafood.)

Anyway, so we go to Family Thrift and we suddenly realize that, as much as Walmart sucks, Walmart really does have the lowest prices. Family Thrift just kind of sucks, but Family Thrift is sooo overpriced that it’s not even close to funny. So, we’re walking around picking up crap that is like twice as expensive as it would be at Walmart when we get to the seafood counter.

Now, usually for the Cajun boil, we get shrimp and snow crab (along with the corn, sausage and potatos.) It just so happens that Family Thrift is out of shrimp and snow crab. So, we check out the king crab.

The lady working behind the counter says, “The king crab is on sale for $15.99 per pound.” We really don’t want to spend $15.99 per pound for much of anything, so I happen to notice a little freezer with prepackaged crab in it. “That’s king crab bits and pieces,” says the counter lady.

Now, I don’t know exactly what “bits and pieces” means, but I do know that the “bits and pieces” are about half the price of the stuff behind the counter. For some reason, this difference in pricing makes me mad. I know this sounds stupid, and it probably is, but the “bits and pieces” look about the same as the stuff behind the counter yet there is a drastic difference in price… and I smell some stupid marketing ploy… and stupid marketing ploys tick me off.

“Why would we pay twice as much for the non-bits-and-pieces stuff,” I practically yell at the wife. Now, it’s not the wife’s fault by any stretch of the imagination, but I’m really yelling at the lady behind the counter indirectly by yelling at my wife directly… it’s a beta male thing and the wife, God bless her, is used to it and takes no offense.

Now, the point I’m making is that we’re gonna buy the bits and pieces because buying the $15.99 crap would be stupid. The lady behind the counter seems to think I’m looking for a deal.

“I’ll tell you what,” the counter lady says, “I’ll let you have the king crab for $15.99 per pound, but that’s as low as I can go.” She is dead serious.

The lady behind the counter seems to think I’m looking for a deal… and semi-retarded. I don’t even bother looking at the counter lady. I don’t want to know if she really thinks I’m stupid enough to fall for the fact that she is offering me a “deal” price that is the same as the sale price she quoted to me only moments earlier. I don’t want to know if she is offended at the fact that I indirectly yelled at her by directly yelling at the wife. I just want to pay for the overpriced crap we have in our cart and I want to go home.

So, we check out, get to the car, and start for home. Now, the wife has this brilliant idea to pick up some McDonald’s for supper. That’s right… New Year’s Eve and me and the family are having McDonald’s for supper. You can’t live in Nebraska and not have at least a touch of trailer trash running through your veins.

“Alright,” I think to myself, “at least it will be quick. Yep, a couple of minutes in the drive-thru and we’ll be on our way.”

We place our order, pay at the first window, and proceed to the second window to pick up our order. A total of about 60 seconds have passed. So, we’re sitting and waiting and excited to start our night of board games and snacking (yeah… we’re party animals.) A couple of minutes go by and I’m starting to get a bit upset. The adolescent people working on the other side of the sliding window won’t even make eye contact. What’s taking so long. This is “fast food,” for crying out loud. Finally, the zit-faced teenage girl who should be handing us our food opens the little sliding window and says, “Uh, your order isn’t, like, ready… so could you, like, pull forward and we’ll, like, bring it to you or something?”

“Uh… ok,” I say. How could some fast food be not ready? Isn’t the purpose of fast food to be ready? I pull forward and am getting pretty hot under the collar.

“How can it not be ready,” I yell at my wife.

“I don’t know,” she smiles.

“What the hell,” I yell. “Do they need me to go in there and make it myself?”

“I don’t know,” she smiles.

We sit out there for almost 15 minutes. Meanwhile, cars behind us are pulling up to that stupid window, getting their food, and driving around us.

“What in the hell are they ordering that is so much faster than our order,” I yell at the wife.

“I don’t know,” she smiles.

Finally, some skinny teenage boy comes rushing out the door of the restaurant with our order out in front of him.

“Here you are, Sir,” says the boy, his voice crackling and I can’t tell if it’s because he’s nervous or if it’s just because he’s a teenage boy. “Sorry for the wait.”

By this point I can’t even look at the boy ’cause I’m so upset. I’m afraid if I look at him I’m gonna start yelling at the wife again… and she’s had enough for one day.

“Uh… ok,” I say to the boy, take the food, and drive away. I’m so ticked, I don’t say anything the whole way home. When we finally get to the house, we head to the dining room to dig into our McDonald’s feast.

After getting my part of the order out in front of me, I ask, “Can someone pass some ketchup?”

“Looks like we didn’t get any ketchup,” says the wife. “I’ll go to the kitchen and get some.”

I can feel my face turning red. I am on the brink of really letting the wife have it when I think better of it. It is, after all, New Year’s Eve. Instead of yelling or cursing, I begin to weep. My salty tears fall silently on the fries in front of me and are every bit as good as ketchup… or so I tell myself.

That is how I spent my New Year’s Eve. I have spent all time since then doing everything I possibly can to avoid contact with the outside world which seems hell-bent on driving me insane.

Happy New Year!